End of the day what does it matter? They will sell a ****load of these. I wouldn't buy one, but there are still many people out there who don't own Ipods due to the fact that they hate Apple, or they just haven't made that jump yet. Microsoft will sell because there are people out there who like them and trust the brand and go with the name, because they use their software products almost exclusively. For the all the bitching people "in the know" do regarding them, there's probably 50-60% maybe more, of people who couldn't care less about what they did or didn't do. I think they will sell a LOT.
Personally I'd just go with whatever one I felt was the better buy at the time I decided to buy one. Anyone who buys an Ipod or Zune just because of the brand name is a little off their rocker. It reminds me of guys who buy Harley Davidsons for no other reason than the name. If you buy a Harley because you feel it's the best bike out there in terms of looks, durability, power, etc that's fine by me, but to buy it just because it has a logo on the side that says Harley just doesn't make sense IMHO. BTW I personally own an Ipod Shuffle. I bought the shuffle because I liked the way Itunes was setup, and the way it charges (usb, no cords).
Yeah, I agree with you zman, but zune is a late-comer and the iPod has become something special to a lot of people, so there's bound to be those crying out against the zune Can we turn this into a poll, could be interesting...
My latest blog posts offers some interesting insight. The DRM thing is really causing them a lot of heartache. Meet iPod, the Zune Killer